Mrs. Claus

Mrs. Claus Wishlist

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Mrs. (1)

I won’t even pretend that this anthology wasn’t originally inspired by a commercial. It totally was. I watched this commercial for Marks and Spencer:

…and, after I stopped crying (every. single. time.) I started thinking about Mrs. Claus.

Mrs. Claus is often in the background of Santa Claus stories, or playing a supporting role, but it’s not very often that–like in the M&S commercial–she gets to the be star. As a middle-aged woman in a world where middle-aged women are often somewhat invisible that really spoke to me. I really, really wanted to edit an anthology that let Mrs. Claus step into the spotlight.

And on a related note, seriously what IS her first name? I mean, I’d be pretty pissed if the only way people knew me was through my relationship with my husband. “Oh, that’s Mrs. Parrish!” “What’s her first name?” “I don’t know? Mrs.?” Nahhh….

Some submissions have been trickling in but I wanted to share a wee bit of a wishlist for what I’d like to see before I started reading them. Since I haven’t started reading submissions yet (I will after posting this) I don’t know what’s in there. If you’ve already sent me a story that nails something on this list yay! If you’re stuck for an idea maybe some of these thoughts will kick something loose in your brain 🙂

Wishlist for Mrs. Claus

  • I’ve got nothing against younger versions of Mrs. Claus, and if she stars in a kick-ass story I will accept stories that feature a younger version of her, but mostly I’m focusing on middle-aged and older women for this anthology. I’d also really like to see women of colour represented in the anthology so please don’t feel constrained to white versions of Mrs. Claus.
  • One word: lightsaber
  • As always if you give me a well-imagined story set during the Great War you’re going to check a box on my wishlist.
    • *cough* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce *cough*
  • For me to consider this anthology successful I need to include stories set on Christmas Eve, but also stories set on other days of the year.
  • Mrs. Claus in space? Yes, please!
  • *punk. Solarpunk. Dieselpunk. Steampunk (c’mon a steam-powered sleigh? Victorian North Pole?!). Anything that fits into any one of those categories would be brilliant.
  • I like reindeer. They like games. I’m just sayin’…
  • Mrs. Claus as a ninja? Why not? Someone needs to be in charge of security at the North Pole! You can’t just leave all that magical stuff laying around unprotected…
  • Mrs. Claus as a pirate? Why not? Something might need to be stolen in order to save Christmas… or sustain the North Pole… or just because it’s shiny.
  • I’m game for a good “Something happens to Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus saves the day!” story–just so long as it doesn’t feel contrived and Mrs. Claus doesn’t go from being in the shadows, to being in the spotlight, to deciding she wants to go back to the shadows. Because no.
  • Mrs. Claus in the wild west.
  • Claus Noir.
  • This anthology isn’t only about empowerment, but it’s also about empowerment, so show me that.
  • I want stories set at the North Pole, but I also want them set in other places; tropical places, fictional places, underwater places, ancient places, future places. All. The. Places.
  • Have fun with it! Christmas is about a lot of things, but one of them is fun. My favourite Christmas movies are always the cheeseball ones that make me cry and the magical, colourful ones where people re-imagine the North Pole.

There… just a few wee hints in case you’re stuck. As always, though, the best story is one I could never have imagined by myself. I hope you’ll write one and send it my way!

 

Mrs. Claus Call for Submissions

For a long, long time Santa Claus has hogged the spotlight relegating his wife to the shadows, but no longer. Now it’s Mrs. Claus’ turn to shine!

We’re looking for stories that let Mrs. Claus (or is it Ms. Claus?) take centre stage. Whether she more closely resembles Michelle Obama, Betty White, Shohreh Aghdashlooor or Maggie Smith, Mrs. Claus must be a developed, independent character and not simply an extension of her husband. She can help and support him—of course she can—but there needs to be more to her than only that.

What’s her role on Christmas Eve? What about the other days of the year? Is she into sleek red snowmobiles or is she more of an old-fashioned magic sleigh kinda gal? Does she prefer baking cookies or kickboxing? Betting on the Reindeer Games or Avon parties with the elves?

And what is her first name, anyway?

Stories are encouraged to re-imagine the North Pole in new and interesting ways (steampunk? alien? magically relocated to the equator?) and to explore a variety of other settings as well. They can also take place in time frames both real and imagined—Christmas in 1940 Poland, Mars in 2050 or a rediscovered Atlantis in 2017 would all be welcome in this anthology.

Note: This anthology is intended for an adult audience, please don’t submit children’s stories.

Rights and compensation: Payment: $10 and a paperback copy of the anthology from World Weaver Press. We are looking for previously unpublished works in English. Seeking first world rights in English and nonexclusive right to continue to publish for the life of the anthology.

Open submission period: April 1, 2017 – May 31, 2017

Length: Under 10,000 words

Submission method: Upload story as .doc or .rtf to niteblade.submittable.com/submit

Simultaneous submissions = okay. Multiple submissions = no.

Expected Publication Date: Winter 2017

Guest Blogger

Inside a Writer’s Mind — On Editing

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Inside a Writer’s Mind – On Editing

Guest Post by Tabitha Lord

Inside a Writer's Mind- On EditingI actually like editing. The bones of my book are already there, and at that point, I know I have a good story. I’ve worked out the major plot tangles and character arcs, defined the conflicts, and sorted the ending. It may not be smooth yet, but I know where I’ve started, where I’ve ended up, and I have a lot worthwhile material in the middle.

It’s out. I’ve birthed a novel. Well, I’ve birthed a manuscript anyway. I know it’s a long way from the finished product.

Editing will take that raw material and refine it, smooth out the flow, and create balance. I know that my fantastic editor will see the things I can’t and cue me to fix them. I know that when I’ve finished this process I will have a much better book. I know that I can get through it because I’ve done it before.

And yet, when I turn in the draft of my manuscript, after months of intensive work, I don’t even want to think about touching it again. I’m exhausted, and the thought of tearing it apart and reassembling it is daunting. It’s also the time where I am plagued by the most crippling self-doubt. What if it’s terrible? What if I have to scrap the whole thing and start over? I’ll never write again. I have no talent. And so it goes…

Inside my head, it’s a strange and dark place during those few weeks. At first, I’m elated that I’ve finished writing, and can confirm with myself that yes, I did it again. I wrote another book. Almost immediately, the doubt sets in. See above. Then, I actually receive the manuscript back from my editor. Let me say this about my editor before I go any further. She’s incredibly skilled at her job. She gets my vision for the story and helps me define it more clearly. She works with the structure of the whole, while digging into the subtle, fine details. She’s masterful and I love her.

But when I receive her five-page editorial document filled with commentary, and my own manuscript covered in red ink, I want to cry. I want to call her on the phone immediately and beg her to tell me she loves me and that I’m not a horrid writer with no talent whatsoever. I’m sure she’s pleased when I refrain from doing this.

Instead, I read what she’s sent me thoroughly, and then I put it aside for a few days, maybe a week. I let the ideas percolate. I begin to see that what she’s suggesting resonates with what I already knew. I take it seriously when she reacts to something in a way I didn’t intend. I recognize my own bad writing habits.

Creative ideas for how to fix things start to flow, in the same way they did when I wrote the draft. I scribble notes everywhere, from the backs of napkins to the little pad I keep by my bed for middle of the night inspiration. I form a plan of attack. Then I call my editor. We talk. We even laugh. And I remember that I love writing, and I’m reassured that I might just have some small bit of skill at it.

 

Originally posted on Book Club Babble

Editing, Published

Dream Eater

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Dream Eater is an urban fantasy with a difference — K. Bird Lincoln didn’t rely on vampires and werewolves for her mythical creatures. Nu-uh. She includes awesome Japanese, Middle Eastern and Native American mythological creatures. Love!

Koi Pierce dreams other peoples’ dreams.

Her whole life she’s avoided other people. Any skin-to-skin contact—a hug from her sister, the hand of a barista at Stumptown coffee—transfers flashes of that person’s most intense dreams. It’s enough to make anyone a hermit.

But Koi’s getting her act together. No matter what, this time she’s going to finish her degree at Portland Community College and get a real life. Of course it’s not going to be that easy. Her father, increasingly disturbed from Alzheimer’s disease, a dream fragment of a dead girl from the casual brush of a creepy PCC professor’s hand, and a mysterious stranger who speaks the same rare Northern Japanese dialect as Koi’s father will force Koi to learn to trust in the help of others, as well as face the truth about herself.

When Dream Eater came into the World Weaver Press slush pile there was more than one editor who was interested in it. I had to elbow and arm wrestle* ’em to be the one to acquire it. I’m forever grateful to be the one who got to edit it because I freaking love this book.

I love the concept.

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I love the characters.

Dream Eater Banner PW Quote

I love the setting.

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Reading Dream Eater has made me want to visit Portland, Oregon so bad. You don’t even know–the struggle is real! I intend some day to go there and visit all the places from the book… okay, maybe I’ll skip the professor’s office (because trespassing) but all the other places. Yup, yup, yup!

And it’s out today! You can get your own copy right now!

Do it. Doooo eeet…

You won’t regret it.

Dream Eater Front

Find it Online:
World Weaver Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes/Apple iBooks
Kobo

 

*Not literally. Sheesh.

Books, Editing

But really, aren’t we all winners?

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Well, the rafflecopter has ended and a winner has been chosen from the over 200 entries.

Congratulations Patricia J.!

I have emailed you with the information I need in order to send your prize and I hope to hear from you soon.

Rafflecopter believes it has chosen our winner, and it has, but K. Bird Lincoln’s book Dream Eater is coming out tomorrow so really, aren’t we all winners?

Pre-order your copy here!

 

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Equus

Equus Table of Contents

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Equus

It’s time, it’s time, it’s time!

I was telling the contributors to this anthology that I look at the TOC reveal a bit like the part of a show where the house lights go down and the curtain begins to open. Not wide open, just a peek — enough to whet your appetite and make you excited for what’s about to come next. This is me introducing you to the anthology… the cover reveal is, I dunno, the handshake perhaps? And the release is when you really get to know one another.

I love Equus. I think it’s the strongest anthology I’ve ever put together and I can barely wait for you to meet and fall in love with it like I have, but for now the introduction. The lights are going down… here’s your peek behind the curtain:

Equus Table of Contents

 

Stars, Wings, and Knitting Things by J.G. Formato

Eel and Bloom by Diana Hurlburt

A Complete Mare by Tamsin Showbrook

Neither Snow, nor Rain, nor Heat-Ray by M.L.D Curelas

Rue the Day by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Riders in the Sky by VF LeSann

Above the Silver Sky by Dan Koboldt

A Mother Unicorn’s Advice to Her Daughter by J.J. Roth

Ladies Day by Susan MacGregor

The Boys from Witless Bay by Pat Flewwelling

The Horse Witch by Angela Rega

Eli the Hideous Horse Boy by Michael Leonberger

Different by Sandra Wickham

To Ride a Steel Horse by Stephanie A. Cain

The Last Ride of Hettie Richter by Cat McDonald

We Us You by Andrew Bourelle

Scatter the Foals to the Wind by Chadwick Ginther

Lightless by K.T. Ivanrest

A Glory of Unicorns by Jane Yolen

Release date: July 2017

Be sure and add it to your shelves on Goodreads in the meantime 🙂

Tesseracts Twenty-one

Tesseracts 21 Wishlist

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EdgeI have the pleasure (and honour) of being one of the editors of this year’s Tesseracts anthology. Tesseracts Twenty-one has the theme of ‘Optimistic SF’ which I think is just perfect, because can’t we all use a little more optimism in our lives?

In the submission guidelines the theme is described as:

The theme of the anthology is ‘optimism’ – which doesn’t necessarily exclude dark or scary settings – but requires some sort of optimistic twist or element. Whether that takes the form of a solar-punk tale set in a sustainable world with a post-scarcity economy, a POV character existing as an advocate of optimism or something else entirely, the editors want to see it.

“We’re not looking for saccharine sweetness, but rather stories which offer a little brightness and hope in one way or another,” says Rhonda Parrish, co-editor.

“While we’re certainly interested in submissions where a Canadian setting (a specific city, region, or province) plays a role, we’re also open to stories set anywhere in the world, the universe, or the multiverse,” says Greg Bechtel, co-editor.

And submissions are open now, which means Greg and I have had the chance to read a few dozen stories already and I’ve got to say, I’m impressed. I love the different ways people are interpreting the theme of optimism! There hasn’t been a saccharine sweet story in the bunch, which I feel is somewhat of a miracle, truth be told. So even though things are looking really good in the submission pile, it’s sort of a tradition for me to put out a wishlist of sorts when I edit an anthology, so here’s my wishlist for Tesseracts Twenty-one 🙂

When I’m reading submissions the #1 most important thing to me are the characters — they need to be three-dimensional, of course, but beyond that I also need at least one character I can cheer for. They don’t need to be perfect (please God, don’t let them be perfect) but it’s vital that I want them to prevail. Apply this to all the things on my wishlist below, because I do 🙂

  • Solarpunk is  optimistic and envisions an eco-friendly future “focused on envisioning a positive future beyond scarcity and hierarchy, where humanity is reintegrated with nature and technology is used for human-centric and ecocentric purposes.” (Source: Wikipedia.). I’d love to see solarpunk stories that use interesting characters to explore the kinds of conflicts that would exist in a utopian world through an optimistic lens. That might include conflict types that exist now (interpersonal, criminal, political) as well as ones that might come about because of the new state of things. What kinds of conflicts would those be? I don’t know. Surprise me!* Related: I love the solarpunk aesthetic of Olivia’s art here.
  • Stories where different factions learn to work together (or at least co-exist) can be cheesy and overdone or they can be amazing and inspiring. If you have one of the latter, send it! 🙂
  • Good humour is difficult to write, but if you can make me laugh when I read your story you are halfway to the longlist already.
  • A new twist on a build-your-own-spaceship story? Yes, please!
  • I’m always a big fan of a good time travel story, and if that isn’t a sub-genre that is ripe for exploring through an optimistic lens I don’t know what is.
  • There are some who believe humans will set foot on Mars within our lifetime. I mean… I’m just saying… (Hint: I’m not just saying)

I could go on. Normally I probably would go on but these vague little hints I’m offering are just meant to help spark something for anyone who wanted to submit but are currently stuck for ideas, they aren’t meant to be prescriptive. And what I’m seeing in the submissions already is creative, thoughtful and insightful so it seems many of you have already got strong, interesting ideas for optimistic SF. I don’t want to muddy those waters.

Submissions will remain open until the end of April. I hope to see your name in the submissions pile and discover what your interpretation of ‘Optimistic SF’ is!

Submission details available here — http://edgewebsite.com/books/tess21/t21-catalog.html

 

*Plagiarized from the MSWL I posted a couple months ago

 

 

Books, Editing

T-Shirt Giveaway

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Dream Eater is coming out soon. April 4th, as a matter-of-fact. In case you haven’t heard me rave about Dream Eater before, it’s a book by K. Bird Lincoln that I had the pleasure of editing. I love it.

Dream Eater Front

Koi Pierce dreams other peoples’ dreams.

Her whole life she’s avoided other people. Any skin-to-skin contact–a hug from her sister, the hand of a barista at Stumptown coffee–transfers flashes of that person’s most intense dreams. It’s enough to make anyone a hermit.

But Koi’s getting her act together. No matter what, this time she’s going to finish her degree at Portland Community College and get a real life. Of course it’s not going to be that easy. Her father, increasingly disturbed from Altzheimer’s disease, a dream fragment of a dead girl from the casual brush of a creepy PCC professor’s hand, and a mysterious stranger who speaks the same rare Northern Japanese dialect as Koi’s father will force Koi to learn to trust in the help of others, as well as face the truth about herself.

Reviews have been coming in, and mostly people like it. People like Beth Cato, and Laura VanArendonk Baugh, and Publisher’s Weekly!

 

To celebrate, and to continue to raise awareness of Dream Eater‘s impending release, I wanted to have a giveaway but I wanted for the prize to be something a little different than normal. I couldn’t make it a handicraft — I’m still working on the blanket that was a prize for my Giftmas fundraiser — but I could make it something fun. A t-shirt from TeeTurtle.com! I’m not affiliated with Tee Turtle in any way, I just happen to love their shirts (and own several of them), so why not give one away?

The winner of this draw will receive one t-shirt of their choice — and trust me, they have some awesome designs to choose from 🙂

Good luck!
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D is for Dinosaur, Guest Blogger

Writers Learn Everything

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Writers Learn Everything

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

I write fantasy, so I have to do more research than those who write real life.

“Wait,” some protest, “there’s a lot of research required for historical, or military thrillers, or other real stories. But in fantasy, you can just make everything up!”

Well, I could, but you wouldn’t enjoy it as much. My job in speculative fiction is to make you believe something could be real, even when it clearly isn’t. That you know of. Yet.

If so much is real, and what is new fits so closely with what we know is real, then maybe, just maybe….? And thus, speculative fiction.

This is why my story about mermaids required research into fox genetics and amazing corpuscles in elephant trunks. And for my D is for Dinosaur entry, I plunged into the following diverse topics:

  • the extremely rare Devils Hole Pupfish, found in a single geothermal pool
  • the history of Chinese bronze casting
  • the natural history of Kazahkstan
  • cassowary attacks
  • the horrifically destructive “Cultural Revolution” in China

Many of these were reduced in final editing so that the submitted story contains now only a reference or a quirky fact, but they are still the foundation for a more cohesive, structurally sound piece of totally-made-up fiction.

When the apocalypse comes and libraries are burning and you have to choose your team for survival, make sure to include a writer. Their brains are full of hidden and potentially useful information!

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Laura VanArendonk Baugh overcame the dubious challenge of having been born without teeth or developed motor skills to become an award-winning writer of speculative fiction, mystery, and non-fiction. Her works have earned numerous accolades, including 3-star ratings (the highest possible) on Tangent‘s “Recommended Reading” list. Her latest novel The Songweaver’s Vow releases February 21 and taught her about ninth century clothing dyes and building construction in Northern Europe. Find her at www.LauraVanArendonkBaugh.com .

D IS FOR DINOSAUR is available now!

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D is for Dinosaur, Guest Blogger

The Other Side of the Partition

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The Other Side of the Partition

by Lynn Hardaker

When I was growing up in Toronto in the 1970s and ‘80s, one of my favourite haunts was the Royal Ontario Museum. My favourite exhibit was the dinosaurs. I’d walk through a doorway into a darkened passage which would lead past moody dioramas featuring a fossil T-rex, reconstructed Stegosaurus and Triceratops, all nestled within large-leafed plastic plants while at least one Pterodactyl hovered overhead. My little brother and I would amble and gape; imagine sneaking past the barriers – that thin partition between our world and that of the dinosaurs. Unfortunately, parental supervision always prevented that kind of fun. The exhibit was small, old fashioned, and I absolutely loved it. (It stirred my imagination far more than I can imagine the museum’s current dinos-in-a-crystal exhibit could.)

When I was offered the opportunity of writing a dinosaur story for Rhonda’s D is for Dinosaur anthology, I was thrilled. It was a chance to return to a childhood escape, to dive in there, to cross the partition. But when I started, I had no idea how to do it. For a while I brainstormed, but everything I wrote seemed either trite or like rehashed b-horror. So I stepped back from it for a while, and that’s when another memory of Toronto from years back surfaced.

There was a local eccentric who had turned his Victorian mansion into a museum – an oversized cabinet of curiosities – filling it with masks and totems, shrunken heads, the bones and skulls of exotic animals, a live python and Galapagos Island tortoise. I was invited to it once by someone who knew him. It was a magical place. Here was someone who had turned his home into a living exhibit; someone living on the other side of the partition. That experience, however brief, stayed with me. It was only much later that I would read that he’d been charged with, and convicted of, abusing some of the young men he’d offered shelter to over the years.

And that all got me thinking; weaving things together: fact and fiction; inspiration and imagination; an image here, a thought there. I scribbled and eventually the story happened. A dinosaur story.

And, in one of those serendipitous events which so often happen to writers, after having written the story – actually in the course of writing this blog post – I found that one of the displays I hadn’t seen in the home-museum of way-back-when was fossilized elephant-bird eggs. The relevance of which will come to light to any who read the story.

 

Lynn Hardaker is a Canadian writer and artist currently living in Regensburg, Germany.  Her poems and short stories have appeared in Mythic Delirium, Not One of Us, Scheherezade’s Bequest, The Ghastling, and other journals. She’s currently doing the final round of edits on her YA historical fantasy novel set in a slightly alternative eighteenth century London.

D IS FOR DINOSAUR is available now!

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Books, Guest Blogger

We’ve Got Loki All Wrong

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We’re going to take a short break from dinosaurs today to help celebrate a different book. The Songweaver’s Vow is by Laura VanArendonk Baugh. You should recognise her name by now (and not just because it stands out LoL) because I’m a pretty big fan of hers and have been lucky enough to work with her on several occasions. On this occasion she wants to talk about Loki. I’ve been reading a lot about Loki (in particular because I just finished putting together Equus and Loki has that whole ‘turned into a horse’ thing goin’ on), but also because c’mon! It’s Loki!

 

We’ve Got Loki All Wrong

by Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Photo by Gage Skidmore
Photo by Gage Skidmore

Loki is kind of a big deal.

From Diana Wynne Jones’ Eight Days of Luke to Neil Gaiman’s American Gods to Marvel’s Avengers films and comic Agent of Asgard, Loki has captured the modern imagination like no other Norse figure. And yes, Thor, sorry, but I’m including you in that. You may be Marvel’s nominal hero, but do you have your own imagine-pr0n Tumblrs? (Okay, you know what, you probably do, because Tumblr. Let’s just move on.)

Because Loki has been so popularly reimagined, however, it can be hard to get an authentic take on him. Even when he is the villain, he usually ends up something of an anti-hero, or at least a sympathetic and attractive villain. (See the Marvel cinematic universe for Exhibit A.)

A playwright friend who adapted Treasure Island for the stage commented to me on how difficult it was to “translate,” because the original audience viewed the pirates as villains while today’s audience (influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean, etc.) views the pirates as the heroes. That’s much the same thing here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Tom Hiddleston too! but this is not that Loki.

In the source material, Loki is not an anti-hero. He is a – what’s this blog rated? – he’s a turdblossom.

A Force of Destruction

1280px-Loki_taunts_BragiThough Loki is often canonically found in Asgard, he’s not a god. The word Jötunn is often translated “giant,” but that’s not terribly accurate; Loki and his kind are actually “devourers.” They are destroyers. They are the chaos to counter the order of Asgard.

And so all the crazy antics for which we know Loki best are not merely amusing tales – turning into a female horse and getting pregnant by a stallion, tethering a goat to his testicles, insulting all the gods and their guests in order – but a deliberate overturning of everything the original audience would have held as honorable and just and comprehensible. And Loki isn’t doing it to make a point, not seeking social justice or questioning social norms, he’s doing it because it’s his nature to tear down and it is fun – even when it has dire personal consequences.

I never planned for this book to give Loki a major role, because so many Norse-based stories are Loki-centric. But in the end, he had more to do with it all than I’d intended, because the one thing you can count on from Loki is that he will do whatever is least intended and most inconvenient.

When Euthalia’s father trades her to Viking raiders, her best hope is to be made a wife instead of a slave. She gets her wish – sort of – when she is sacrificed as a bride to a god.

Her inhuman husband seems kind, but he visits only in the dark of night and will not allow her to look upon him. By day Euthalia becomes known as a storyteller, spinning ancient Greek tales to entertain Asgard’s gods and monsters.

When one of her stories precipitates a god’s murder and horrific retribution, Euthalia discovers there is a monster in her bed as well. Alone in a hostile Asgard, Euthalia must ally with a spiteful goddess to sway Odin himself before bloody tragedy opens Ragnarok, the prophesied end of the world.

The Songweaver’s Vow released Tuesday, February 21, and is available at Amazon and wherever books are sold.

 

Elemental-5252-webLaura VanArendonk Baugh overcame the dubious challenge of having been born without teeth or developed motor skills to become an award-winning writer of speculative fiction, mystery, and non-fiction. Her works have earned numerous accolades, including 3-star ratings (the highest possible) on Tangent’s “Recommended Reading” list. Laura speaks professionally on a variety of topics throughout the year, including writing, fan costuming, and her day job as a professional animal trainer and behavior consultant. Find her at www.LauraVanArendonkBaugh.com .

 

D is for Dinosaur

C.S. MacCath Reading

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We’re going to be launching D is for Dinosaur here in Edmonton this March:

D is for Dinosaur

(Details here)

But because the D is for Dinosaur contributors are spread so far out across the globe (and there are twenty-six of them!) we couldn’t possibly include everyone. So I asked the other contributors if they’d like to record themselves doing a reading from their story and I’d share it on my blog.

C.S. MacCath responded with this reading from her story, “One Who Dies as a God Dies”. The language is beautiful. The reading is like poetry. Listen, and enjoy!

 

 

C.S. MacCath is a PhD student of Folklore and a writer of fiction, non-fiction and poetry whose work has been shortlisted for the Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and nominated for the Rhysling Award. Her first collection, The Ruin of Beltany Ring, has been called ‘wonderful, thoroughly engaging, always amazing’ and a book of ‘tiny marvels’. Advance reviewers have called her second collection, The Longest Road in the Universe, ‘a vivid, epic and touching journey’, ‘elegant and elegiac’, and ‘packed full of lush worlds, lyrical prose, three-dimensional characters and honest emotions’. She lives in Atlantic Canada, which might just be far enough north for her tastes, unless something opens up in Iceland.

D IS FOR DINOSAUR is available now!

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I write, I edit and I take a lot of naps.

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